1st Sampling Day........ almost

Ants had found the bin. They’re a little pet hate of mine, for some reason I find them really annoying. I think it’s the way they sneak in through little holes and brazenly walk around in so many numbers, swarming all over the place. The bin however is about the best place for them if they do insist on being in the house and this was what I met stumbling into the kitchen this morning. Fumbling around with the coffee jar I started to attempt to create a decent brew out of our very eccentric coffee machine.

                This was supposed to be the start of the first proper field day. Proper sampling, proper methods and proper research. It didn’t quite pan out as expected, which is apparently how all proper field work is carried out, by overcoming the obstacles you didn’t predict.

The start of the day was good. KT took us through the preparation procedures for geochemical water sampling and explained the theories behind them. It was very satisfying to combine some the intensely frustrating procedures with the chemically logical and practical reasons behind them. Seeing it all come together in 3D in front of you.

Learning to calibrate, clean and put together the flow through cells, pH, DO, Conductivity and Dip probes and meters took most of the morning. Next came preparing the sampling case, methods and procedures upon arrival at the borehole you wish to sample. All of this was dutifully noted down and brought out in the field later, though with much more sweat.

Fortunately by the time we had worked through everything it was midday and an early lunch coincided perfectly with the football! I think KT and Didi were in the villa somewhere during the game, but me and George were definitely glued to our TV which gives everything a slightly peculiar colour, a bit like viewing a normal TV through 3D glasses.

       The 'Field'

Into the field we went and KT let the students navigate through the pine forests to the borehole. A tricky knack of navigating by overgrown logging roads from the 60’s, but this time successfully managed. Initially all was well; we found the borehole, found the groundwater and set up the pump fine. Then bubble problems began. I always liked bubbles, they’re round, shiny, floaty and one of the main characters in Finding Nemo. KT has now however instilled in all of us a deep hatred for bubbles. They are there to irritate and you can’t even throw things at them.

There was a steady stream of tiny bubbles passing through the cells and interfering with the meters. The origin of the air leak was crafty though and when fixed in one place would move to another. After much tinkering with the new Flow Through Cell, pipe joinings, seals, meters and data recording we decided that we needed to return to the Lab to sort this problem. We sat out on our ‘Thinking Step’ in front of the house and worked through it slowly. Problem joints and seals identified we set out in Apollo 13 style to fix things with the contents of our tool box. In the end it was quite a simple bodge. A little tape here, some accurate brute force there and we were sampling the water out the bucket and into the garden like nobody’s business. Looking forward to using it in the field tomorrow in fine style.